


I See You

by Melusine11



Series: Reylo Monster Week 2018 [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: And a little bit of murder from Rey, Champion Kylo, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Gorgon Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:18:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusine11/pseuds/Melusine11
Summary: “I know you’re here!” A man yells from below and she huffs out a breath, disturbing the resting nest of snakes that make up her hair now. She feels them shift as they rise up, disgruntled and quietly hissing before they settle again.“We have a guest,” she murmurs, bringing her hand up to gently touch several of her constant companions while keeping her voice low. She leans out over the empty space to peer down at the man. He’s large. Tall, yes, but also broad, he’s hefting a greatsword with both hands and she takes a moment to admire the way his muscles shift and bulge beneath his skin.“Show yourself, monster!”





	I See You

**Author's Note:**

> My final piece for Reylo Monster week. It's been a blast.

So many champions. All so useless. Felled before they even knew what struck them. They were all hers now. A collection of pretty things to brighten her dour cell. Once, it had been a palace, but now it was a hell.

She skirts past a fallen shield and rights a vase on a dust-covered table before stopping to stare at her newest addition. Handsome. Young, and fool enough to still be smiling in death. Her fingers traced the hard planes of his face. Cherubic cheeks and curly hair. She wonders if he has a mother who might miss him. Or a brother, a family. Anyone who will mourn him now that he is gone.

They come less often than they did, once upon a time. The lower levels are practically filled with statues. A message. A warning. Some heeded it. Others, like this young soul, still journeyed on. Was it fortune or glory that pushed them onward. She never got the chance to ask.

Time moves slowly for her now. Before. When she was truly young time seemed to pass so quickly. Now she has to watch time tick by without her. On sunny days she manages the trek to the tallest tower and gazes out at the sea that surrounds her tiny island. Ships pass her by at a distance. Most days she lazes around and looks into the faces of her would be killers, imagining all kinds of lives for them that they will never get to see.

She hears the door open and thinks to wait, then there is a clattering of pottery falling, breaking and she hisses, turning away from the boy, to rush to the stairs.

“I know you’re here!” A man yells from below and she huffs out a breath, disturbing the resting nest of snakes that make up her hair now. She feels them shift as they rise up, disgruntled and quietly hissing before they settle again.

“We have a guest,” she murmurs, bringing her hand up to gently touch several of her constant companions while keeping her voice low. She leans out over the empty space to peer down at the man. He’s large. Tall, yes, but also broad, he’s hefting a greatsword with both hands and she takes a moment to admire the way his muscles shift and bulge beneath his skin.

“Show yourself, monster!” He calls, sword swinging wildly in front of him.

“You wish, so readily for death, then?” she calls back frowning as she watches him clumsily turn, brandishing the weapon.

“The only one dying this day is you.”

She sighs as she begins to descend the stairs. “You’re very dramatic, I like it. Also, far more talkative than the others. They just yell and run right at me.”

“What is this? Are you trying to trick me in some way?” He’s turned to face where her voice is coming from but keeping his head determinedly down. That was fine. They all caved in the end.

“No trick,” she assures him. “Can I ask you something, since you seem so willing to talk?”

“I will not give in to whatever trick this is, now cease your chatter and prepare for death.”

“My darling, I have been prepared for death since this curse was put upon me.” Still with the wild brandishing of the sword, as if she could be caught so easily. She steps just out of reach in front of him and he falters.

“You have feet,” he mutters, head tilted to the side as if listening, “all of the stories,” he begins, clearly talking to himself.

“All of the stories say that I’m a monster. Go on, say it. You already have once.”

She watches his Adam's apple bob as he swallows, “you’re a monster.”

“Yes, I am,” she affirms, watching the sword begin to tremble in his grip. “You are strong,” she observes, “but not a fighter any longer.”

He tenses, jabbing the sword almost in her direction. “Don’t! Stop talking. I will kill you.”

“So they all keep saying, yet here I am, while all of them,” she gestures with a broad sweep of an arm and turns to look. They are everywhere. Some standing, others kneeling, while some lay sprawled on their backs, trying to scramble away. “Will you tell me why you’re here?” she asks.

“Why I am here? I am to kill you.”

“Yes, but why? I want to know why.”

“Because you are a _monster_. Because the king wills it to be done.”

“If you should return with my head, what is it that you get, as your payment.”

His shoulders sag for a moment before he pulls himself to his full height. “I am to become free.”

Curiouser and curiouser. “What is your name? I think I would very much like to know the name of the man who finally fells me.”

“The King, Snoke, he calls me Kylo Ren.”

“What do you call yourself?”

“Ben. My name is Ben.”

“Just Ben?” She watches him swallow again, frowning, even as he nods. “Well, just Ben. My name is Rey. Or it was, _before_.” She steps closer and nudges the sword to rest upon her shoulder. “What will you tell him, Ben, when you return? Will you tell him that we fought? That I was weak? Not a monster but a woman?” Above her, the snakes grow restless, distressed.

“I - I do not know. I am not expected to return. I displeased the king. I was sent here to die.”

“I know.” The sword slips on her shoulder as he trembles and she watches his face. Deep frown between his brows and a scar that bisects the right side of his face. She wonders how he got it, how he survived.

“I’ve never killed before,” he confesses quietly and the sword slips completely from her shoulder before he looks boldly up at her. She sucks in a breath of surprise at the action, a quiet symphony of hisses rises above her and then she blinks. And blinks again.

She speaks, surprising herself. “You are still flesh,” her hands reach for him and when her fingers brush his forearm he flinches away. “Sorry. Please, can I?” she asks, hand suspended in the air between them and achingly slow he raises his own arm between them, canted off to the side and it all suddenly makes sense.

“You are warm,” he says and she laughs wetly because that’s exactly what she was going to say.

“Ben,” his name tastes like honey on her lips and she steps closer. “You should not be here, should not stay, but I find myself to be a greedy sort of monster.” A smile plays at his lips as his fingers trace the lines on her hand.

“I cannot go back. Not without -” _your head_ remains unspoken in the air between them.

She cannot recall the last time she had been touched by someone other than herself. The day she was cursed? The days that followed as she was trussed up and taken to this place to rot? It’s such a gentle thing, an innocent caress against the skin of her inner wrist, but she shudders at it all the same. 

“You have not always been blind,” she speaks, cautious, while inside her fury grows. She wants to storm through the heavy front doors of her prison, stalk after the men who had carted him here and slaughter them all. To punch a fist through their chests and pull out their hearts. An eternity encased in a stone tomb was too good a death for those beasts.

His jaw tenses and she wonders if he will answer or if he will find some new way to remove her head from her body, now that his sword is at their feet. She kicks it away. “No,” he finally says, other hand reaching out, and she gladly takes it. “No, for most of my life I could see, but then,” he lifts their joined hands and points at his face, at his scar, at the white of the sclera that is in both eyes, as if his iris and pupil had been completely stolen. She _knows_ that’s exactly what had happened. “I should have died from the wound, but Snoke demanded that I should live. The gods, they granted him a boon, but there was a sacrifice to be made.” He is trembling in her grasp. “He was furious.”

“I am sorry,” she tells him, gently disentangling from his grip to let her fingers light upon the mark. He snarls a bit and backs away but her other hand holds him tight and she persists. “I see you, I too have tasted the wrath of the gods, trapped in a body that once had men falling over themselves to see. Now they come to try and kill me, I am something to be feared, and now no man can look upon me without dying.” Her lips twist into a smile he cannot see as her thumb passes down over his jaw. “You used to be a fighter?”

“Yes. Before. For sport. An entertainer. We put on a show, every night. All for him, but he’s ruthless, it was never enough. I tried to leave when he started calling for blood, but you cannot leave when you are bound.” She wants to smooth the frown from his brow, wants to march farther than the shoreline to find this _king_ and end him. Ruthlessly.

“Do you want me to kill them?” she asks into the silence that falls in the breath after his confession. Her eyes stare at both of his before drifting to look at the door again. It would be so easy.

“Yes.” His hand is still trembling in her own and she presses her palm back up against his cheek. He sighs and nuzzles into it. The rasp of scales shifting fills the space, a tongue darts out and licks her ear. She shakes her head gently, displacing them just enough that they know to leave her alone. 

“Consider it done. Come with me.” She kicks the sword further away, making a note to throw it onto the pile with all the rest later, when business is complete. The sun is warm on her skin as she steps over the threshold. She doesn’t have far to go to find them, seemingly laying in wait for Ben to return, or for a suitable length of time to pass so they know he’s dead. One of them screams, cut off into nothing as his body is consumed by stone. The other tries to run, and so she releases Ben’s hand to chase him down. 

He is waiting where she left him. Face tilted up towards the sun, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Tell me,” he begins, hearing her approach. She watches, entranced as his tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Tell me what you see.”

“I see a man,” she begins, reaching out for his hands once more. She could weep over the way his flesh feels against her own. “Handsome, yet sad. He is strong, yet gentle. There is nothing but ruins behind him, yet before him there is-”

“Beauty.” His hands escape hers and take a deliberate path up her arms. He steps closer, so close she can feel the heat rolling off of his body. Gently, carefully his large hands trace the lines of her neck up to her face. “Do not cry,” he whispers, fingers dancing over her face, learning, seeing. Hesitantly he brushes against the snakes that make up her hair, a horrific image. She wonders if the men she has killed have nightmares of her visage, trapped in their stone prisons. The snakes shift against one another, vying for the attention of the newcomer. She watches his face, the delight that unfurls there as each of them nudge at his hands, scenting him with their tongues. They’ve been so long a part of her now, it is commonplace, the way they feel, but when they first became a part of her, there was no joy in finding them. No awe in the way they move and hiss. 

He explores the planes of her face, her body, all while she watches the discoveries occur on his own face. The furrow of a brow at the jut of her collarbones, an embarrassed blush and a diverting path at her breasts, a curious smile at a scar on her abdomen, a true smile when his thumb dips into her belly button, making her squirm. He stops at her waist, she watches his chest heave with the breaths he takes and she shifts her weight from foot to foot.

“I see you,” he whispers, sagging forward, and she leans in, finding his forehead with her own. Pleased, her snakes dart forward and tangle into his hair. He makes a noise of surprise and Rey raises her own hands to try and draw them back. “Don’t,” he sighs, “I don’t mind.” He rolls his head back and forth against her own and she hums. “I see you,” he says again, arms raising so he can cup her face. It’s not until he’s brushing more tears away that she realizes she hasn’t stopped crying. 


End file.
